Project automation - How to change the "Actor"

[Sascha Dornig]

Hey there, 

I hope you all are doing well! 

I created a bunch of Jira automations already and came across the fact that there seems to be a limitation of which users can be selected as the Actor (Currently, this is only I and the Automation for Jira) 

Is there a reason for this? Can this be changed to other users (a different admin in the project) as well? 

Thanks in advance and have a nice day/evening! 

[Nicole Downes]

@nmenere I am trying to automate logging time for an issue if it is "In Progress" from start to end of the day so that the assignee does not need to manually add it to their timesheet.   While I can get the automation to log the time correctly, the time gets logged to "Automation for Jira", not the assignee.  

Is there a way with the current functionality for me to get the outcome I am trying to achieve?

Would you consider adding options such as reporter, assignee, project lead in the Actor selection list as "actors" that can be picked if the Log work action is used in the automation?

I am using Jira Cloud Premium.

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello @Sascha Dornig

Thank you for reaching out.

Indeed, it's not possible to change the actor of automation rules. This is caused by a limitation on Jira Cloud, where no apps can act on behalf of users:

An add-on can request to act on behalf of a given user 

Now that the automation app has been acquired by Atlassian, we don't have that limitation anymore, so we created the following feature request to properly allow the change of the actor for automation rules:

Allow changing of the rule actor in cloud 

Please, keep an eye open in the feature request above to know when we deploy that improvement.

That being said, can you please give us more details about the final goal you are trying to achieve by changing the actor? Maybe we can provide a different option that could help you.

Let us know if you have any questions.

[Sascha Dornig]

Thank you for your quick response on this @Petter Gonçalves ,

Sure! My goal is to act on behalf of a "fake user" in our project to keep the comments/actions performed by the automation consistent.

This looks definitely better instead of the name "Automation for Jira" or always my name. 

[nmenere]

Actually, this isn't quite true. We "just" rolled out "Run as a user" in Jira Cloud last week.

If you are a admin, you will be able to set the actor to anyone, otherwise you can only set it to the Automation User or yourself.

Hope that is what you are after.

Cheers,

Nick [Atlassian - Automation Group Product Manager]

[Sascha Dornig]

@nmenere I am Admin of my project and can only set it to the Automation user or myself. Do I need to be a general Admin of the entire Jira Service Desk instance? 

[nmenere]

Yes, Only a general admin can set the actor to another user or dynamic user, e.g. person who triggered the event. This is done for security reasons.

Project admins can only set the actor to the automation user or themselves.

Cheers,

Nick

[Gabor Nagy _Midori_]

@nmenere Is there any chance that a similar feature will get implemented for the Server/Data Center automation app? Is this on Atlassian's roadmap?

[nmenere]

Hi @Gabor Nagy _Midori_ you have been able to do this in the Server version since the beginning. 

[Gabriel Barthe]

Hello @nmenere 

I have the Server version and I'm not able to set the actor as "User who triggered the event"

Is this possible in the Server version?